


In Vino Vanitas

by speakmefair



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Canon, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lancelot drinks, and promises a kind of fidelity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino Vanitas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sasha_b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/gifts).



There are nights when Lancelot drinks too much.

Not enough for sloppiness (at least not in anything but letting his speech spiral out of control that little bit of too much; enough to torment Bors and gain a frown from Dagonet and make Vanora laugh) but enough to give him that gleam and shine and spark that only wine can imbue him with; everything a little too dark, a little too wide-eyed and glittering, his lips glossy and stained with wine-lees, drawing the eye for that fraction too long, absorbing the light and the flickering attention from those passing by, a breath of availability on night-air that promises all that cannot be held too close.

 _Notice me, see me, touch me_ , is the message he gives the world, and watches them all obey like heavy summer moths, all save the one in perpetual light-winged flight that he will never draw to his particular flame.

A despised and incomprehensible God has given Arthur those wings, and no wine-dregs will weigh him down, for all their sodden attraction.

Lancelot burns with a flame born of self-loathing, red-hot and ashy and crumbling beneath the weight of its own fire, while Arthur dances far above him, the spark of illumination in his every move, and by every god that Lancelot will not admit exists, he is over that edge when he thinks like this, tipped over by the wine into outright despairing lust, and at moments such as these not only for the body, though he knows its appearance, unconcealed, only adds to his allure.

He thinks of things that would be more dangerous to take, even for a night, even for a moment; thinks of those who are already taken, who would be pure folly to even contemplate, and breathes out relaxation even as he thinks of them.

Vanora he won't even try, though perhaps he could; that kind of game is not to his liking, much though he pretends it is his preferred taste.

Infidelity holds no charms for him in reality. Galahad, perhaps, for the simple fact of the inevitable wrath and vengeance that would be Gawain's, later – though that, too, is too close to a kind of betrayal for his preference.

Tristan, though, separate, death-loving Tristan, taken only by his love of blood and destruction – but no. There are all too many kinds of danger with Tristan, and none of them ones he owns the mastery of. In the end, he would prefer trust to that kind of knowledge, and whether Tristan thinks himself capable of using it or not, he would, one day. That kind of inner solitude is won hard; too hard, and Lancelot wants none of it, not when it could be turned against him, not when that lethal edge of knowledge might become his to fight and not to rely upon.

Nothing he wants, then, and no-one he truly desires, and it will be all to do again some other night, fuelling his own hopeless desires and taking some whore whose name he cannot even be bothered to pretend and remember to his bed, for the simple reason that he cannot endure these times without some release.

Nights such as this, Arthur's name beats in his mind, and he forgets all others; forgets his own; would gladly forget himself with or without that naming, and does not dare; and there is no price he would not pay for a second of knowing any of it is returned.

There is no price he would not pay for one night of believing himself held above all others in Arthur's regard, one second's glance that let him know his desire was returned, one moment wherein –

What? Folly, annihilation, the balance destroyed, and all for this lust that will not leave him? No, for more than that, for love, for the love no-one can give Arthur because they do not dare, because he is so far above them that anything but the admiration due the Commander is unthinkable, that to bring him down to their level would be a crime.

For a moment's love, a moment's impossible belief and ludicrous pleasure in the giving of it, then, and that moment impossible even to think of, for what would Arthur be, made capable of such weakness, what would become of any of them if he admitted to such need? No, no, and never that, never at Lancelot's hands, never from his mouth and by his words. He has enough control even now to prevent that from happening.

He would give all the love lying fallow in the world, if he only dared, if he did not know it barren and futile, if he ever thought it could be seen and accepted and loved in return – but it is not, and it cannot be, and the jug of wine cannot remove that knowledge from him though he drains it.

Love is not his to give, and never Arthur's to mention save to his damnable and damned God of bleeding hands and feet and side, and all Lancelot can show is the same need he gives the rest of the world, and on nights like this it is unendurable.

Because with the rest of the world, he wants only to take, and with Arthur –

What he wants from Arthur he is hardly capable even of saying in his own head, not even after too much wine, not even after every gaze of every man and woman behind the wall has added fuel to his drunken flame; not even then can he admit it.

He knows only this: that he keeps two swords at his back. One of them is for killing those he hates, and the other, though he uses it as well, is reserved for the day that will inevitably come.

He is keeping it for the day he knows what Arthur wants, and saves that unknown thing for him, so that one day, his name will beat in Arthur's mind as Arthur's does in his, constant, impervious to all other desires, unbanishable.

After all, the flame always wins.


End file.
